The Untaken Photo

The AI work "Untaken Photo" is not a photograph, nor is it purely fantasy. It is a synthetic reconstruction of a lost memory. It was born from a collaboration with Canadian photographer Greg Girard. The concept originated from a specific memory of Girard that he failed to capture on film. During his years photographing the Walled City in the late 1980s, he stumbled upon a Cathay Pacific flight attendant, dressed in her pristine red uniform walking into the dark, dripping alleyways of the Walled City. Girard rushed to follow her to get the shot, but she disappeared into the labyrinth before he could raise his camera. For decades, this remained "the untaken photo"—a memory that felt too cinematic to be real, yet was.

"I never saw that scene again, of a Cathay crew member, uniformed and perfectly groomed, heading into the Walled City, and so it’s kind of burned into my memory as 'the one that got away.'" Greg Girard.